Super Junior AU; Hanchul; Games of Kiss and Tell
Title: Games of Kiss And Tell
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Hankyung/Heechul
Word count: 7,627
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “Apparently,” he called to Heechul, who was brushing his teeth in the adjacent en-suite bathroom, “I’m cheating on you.”
A/N: This has no real storyline, and I’ve been writing it for months, and it’s so long! Really, how do I manage to achieve this level of time wasting?
A few things. Mainly I just wanted to write Heechul’s reaction to a claim that Hankyung was cheating on him, and it got away from me. Xiao Li and Siwon totally get married - this is set not long after their wedding, something I plan on writing at some point, because there are important things to be addressed in it. I know that it’s not really plausible for all of the relationships to have survived this long, but the whole original story line wasn’t really plausible, so yes XD.
I love Siwon-Hankyung-Heechul-Xiao Li BFFery so much, yes I do.
Young actor Hankyung won the hearts of millions last year with his breathtaking breakthrough role in popular drama “Me and You”, and he is the star in the recently released film, “Heart of a Ghost” (See review on page 41).
And his long-term relationship of seven years with hair stylist Kim Heechul, who was the brains behind many of the styles seen in the film, endeared him to yet many more - his award for “Best New Actor” at this year’s national films awards was dedicated to Heechul.
Yet, our exclusive pictures show that all may not be well in the relationship, and that Hankyung may, in fact, be cheating on his partner.
Hankyung was snapped coming out of a restaurant close to the city flat he shares with Heechul, holding the hand of a tall woman.
The two were spotted together late in the evening, and were chatting and laughing as they both got into a taxi.
The restaurant owner refused to comment, but a witness told us that the two sat in a secluded corner booth, with low lighting, and seemed to know each other quite well.
“They seemed to be celebrating something,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. “I only noticed because my wife is a fan of Hankyung and commented on how weird it was to see him out with Heechul.”
Indeed, all fans of the actor will be left wondering the same thing.
How many more will creep out of wood work in the light of this scandal?
“Um,” said Hankyung, staring at the tabloid article and the grainy black-and-white picture that accompanied it. “Apparently,” he called to Heechul, who was brushing his teeth in the adjacent en-suite bathroom, “I’m cheating on you.”
Heechul’s head appeared around the door, toothbrush in his hand as he looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “Who with?” he managed around his mouthful of froth.
“You,” said Hankyung, peering closely at the photograph and turning it upside down to see if that would help. “I think. It’s hard to tell.”
Heechul disappeared again, and after a minute he came out of the bathroom, wiping at his mouth with a towel. “What are you talking about?” he asked, throwing the towel on the bed and opening the wardrobe. “You’re making less sense than a drunken Donghae.”
“Remember when we went out a couple of nights ago for that meal?” Hankyung asked, pushing himself into a sitting position on the bed. “I was seen ‘holding the hand of a tall woman’, who ‘I seemed to know quite well’.”
“I suppose the last bit is true,” said Heechul, looking as though he was on the verge of laughter as he took the newspaper from Hankyung’s hands. “These people are all nuts, it’s obviously me.”
“No, it’s not,” said Hankyung. His argument that it was never ‘obviously’ Heechul had become as habitual as his reminder that Heechul was not a girl - he barely even noticed that he was saying it any more. “I don’t know how they know that’s me, never mind expecting them to realise that that’s you.”
“What’s this bit at the end mean?” Heechul didn’t seem to be listening. “Are they suggesting you’re a playboy or something?” He seemed a little too excited by that thought - in fact, he slid a hand up Hankyung’s chest and pressed himself close. “I’ve always wanted to date a playboy,” he purred.
“Now you tell me,” joked Hankyung, and then he struggled to regain his focus. Seven years had not diminished Heechul’s powers of seduction - in fact, they had grown rather, because now he knew exactly what to do. Hankyung stood up before Heechul could employ any of the underhand tactics that he had at his disposal. “This is serous,” he told Heechul, who stretched out on the bed and pouted at the rejection. “If people honestly believe that I’m cheating on you, then I could lose a large part of my fan base, and they’re important this early in my career.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Heechul, and arched his back up off the bed.
“But on the other hand, the criticism if it came out that it was you in the pictures could be so bad that it caused the end of my career anyway, and I think that…” He trailed off as Heechul stretched a hand out to him, his eyes dark and sultry.
“You worry too much,” he said in a low voice. “You need to relax.”
“And I suppose you’re going to help me with that,” said Hankyung, who knew exactly what Heechul meant by ‘relax’, and while the prospect was tempting, it wasn’t actually going to help his situation.
“Too much talking,” said Heechul with a smirk. “Not enough kissing me. You need to make up for cheating on me, with me.”
Hankyung indulged himself in a little yell, aware that he wasn’t going to get anything sensible out of Heechul, not when he was in this mood. However, he was also aware that if he wanted someone helpful, he should have fallen in love with Ryeowook or Eeteuk, and not Heechul, who still thought nothing of punching him if he tried to wake him up. “You’re not being very helpful,” he said miserably.
“I wasn’t trying to be helpful,” said Heechul, standing up and pulling a towel from the top of the wardrobe. “However, I am going to take a shower.” He paused by the door and glanced over his shoulder at Hankyung, invitation in his eyes, hip jutting out just so. “Fancy joining me?”
“Fine,” sighed Hankyung, and grabbed a towel for himself.
***
Siwon rang him while he was driving to his manager’s office to try to diffuse the situation. Hankyung cursed the hands free set for making him able to take the call, cursed Heechul for causing the whole thing, and then cursed God for his whole life. Then he cursed Heechul again, just because.
“Go away,” he said after he’d pressed the ‘take call’ button, before Siwon could say anything whatsoever.
“I take it you’ve seen it then,” said Siwon with a tense laugh.
“Of course I’ve seen it,” said Hankyung. “I’m on my way to the agency right now to see if we can get the paper to retract it. Hopefully if they apologise straight away, it will stop any rumours.”
“Oh,” said Siwon. “Oh, I thought you - oh.”
“What?” Hankyung asked impatiently, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he waited at some red lights.
“It’s not just one newspaper, Hankyung. It’s in practically every tabloid in Seoul.”
The car stalled. Hankyung cursed again.
“You’re going to have to sort it out quickly though,” said Siwon. “This could ruin you.”
“I know,” said Hankyung, stuck at yet another set of traffic lights. “God, Siwon, why me?”
“God hates you,” said Siwon, completely dead pan. “He told me so.” There was a brief commotion in the background, and it took a few seconds for Siwon to say anything else. “Xiao Li says hi,” he said finally.
“She tried to grab the phone off you again, didn’t she?” Hankyung asked, as he finally pulled into the car park of the agency.
“Yes,” said Siwon with a long suffering sigh, amusement in his voice. “She doesn’t seem to understand the concept of private conversations.”
“Come for dinner,” yelled Xiao Li in Chinese in the background.
“She spends too much time with Heechul,” said Hankyung with a sigh very similar to Siwon’s, as he switched the engine off and held the mobile to his ear. “He seems to think the entire thing is hilarious.”
“Rella thinks anything even remotely chaotic is hilarious,” said Siwon and Hankyung had to admit that he had a point. “I’m going to go,” he continued, “before Xiao Li pokes my eye out because I won’t give her the - ow! She hit me!”
“Bye, Siwon,” said Hankyung, and hung up before Xiao Li managed to get the phone and pulled him into a long conversation about the health benefits of Chinese food, the relaxation benefits of Chinese aromatherapy, and the combined benefits of her own food, which she seemed to think he never ate enough of despite eating at the house at least once a week.
***
“You absolute moron,” were his manager’s words when he walked through the door of the office; they had apparently been planned in advance, prepared for his arrival, and he looked as though he had a speech that he wanted to say. Hankyung paused, decided not to say anything, and came into the room and sat down.
“I can’t believe,” said the older man, glaring at him, “that you would be stupid enough to have an affair with someone so close to home. I mean, couldn’t you have gone to a love hotel with the girl, right in the outskirts of town, where no one has even heard of cameras? No, you had to take her to a restaurant on the posh side of town, crawling with paparazzi, and then take her back to your place! What, you thought that people weren’t going to recognise you?”
“No,” said Hankyung slowly, and then stopped again. “Wait, how did you know we went back to the flat?”
In reply his manager rummaged around in his desk for a few seconds and pulled out a stack of newspapers, flicked through, pulled a certain one out, one notorious for its celebrity coverage, and threw it down in front of Hankyung, who jumped as he saw the large photo on the front page. It had been taken in front of the block, Hankyung kissing the ‘mystery woman’ - he could remember it, him struggling to get the key from his pocket, Heechul being his usual unhelpful self by half-pulling him to the side to kiss him, laughing against his lips as Hankyung groaned about that being distracting. He gave himself a little shake to pull himself back to the present, where the tabloid was claiming, yet again, that he was a dirty stinking lying cheat, to paraphrase.
“Now,” said his manager, with the air of trying to explain something very simple to someone very dumb, “I don’t mind that you’ve been having an affair - in this business, everyone does. What is absolutely fucking retarded is that you’ve conducted it so near to where you live, where anyone who recognised you would be able to tell on you. And now I’ve got to try to sort this mess out before you lose so many jobs that we can’t get you any work at all.”
“Oh,” said Hankyung. “Oh, I’m not having an affair, though.”
“My newspapers beg to differ,” retorted his manager.
“But I’m not,” said Hankyung earnestly. “Seriously, that’s not some other woman that I’ve been messing around with.”
His manager just stared at him, with his eye brows raised. “Seriously,” repeated Hankyung. “Don’t you think that the person in the pictures looks remarkably familiar?”
“No,” said the man bluntly. “I think it looks like you and some woman.”
“It’s not,” said Hankyung forcefully. “That’s Heechul.”
There was a pause. His manager raised his eyebrows, glanced at the picture again, and then looked back to Hankyung. “I’ve heard some excuses in my time,” he said, amusement rife in his voice, “but that one is stupidly unique.”
“It’s not an excuse,” said Hankyung loudly. “I’m not lying, that is honestly Heechul.”
His manager started at him. “No,” he mumbled, “you don’t lie, do you?” And he picked up the paper again, looked closely at it, and then said, “Heechul, you say?” And he continued to stare at it, making noises in the back of his throat as Hankyung sat and waited for it to click.
“Good lord,” said his manager after around five minutes. “You’re right!” Hankyung fought back the urge to say I know I am, and instead just nodded his head encouragingly. “But how?” His manager went on. “I mean, Heechul’s a guy, I’ve met him before.”
“He likes to dress as a girl sometimes,” said Hankyung with a shrug. He had had to explain this before, and he had found that if he acted unbothered by it, then the other person tended to have the same reaction. “Well, more than sometimes. Most of the time. He’s been careful since the press found out about us in the first place, but I guess we just forgot.”
“You want to get your memories checked out,” said his manager, but he didn’t seem to be listening that much. He gave himself a little shake and put the newspaper down. “The question is, what are we going to do now?”
“I was hoping,” said Hankyung, aware that it was going to sound like a rather strange request, “that we’d be able to just tell the truth. I mean,” he added, as his manager looked at him like he was crazy, “if we don’t, then the rumours are just going to keep following us. Heechul’s not going to give up dressing like he does anytime soon, and I’m not going to make him. If it’s okay with you, and okay with Heechul, then I want to just tell the truth.”
“That’s risky in this business,” said his manager with a frown. “Telling the truth, I mean. Very rare. But I suppose the truth in this case sounds so far-fetched that it could just work in our favour. Fine, ask Heechul. I want an answer by the end of the day, mind you.”
“Fine,” said Hankyung, and was struck by the feeling that that had been too easy. People worried him sometimes.
***
“Hey,” said Hankyung as he walked into the hair section of the drama that he was currently shooting. Heechul had managed to get a job on the same shoot, and while Yehsung teased him about riding in on his boyfriend’s fame, Heechul had applied for the job before Hankyung had even found out that he’d received the part. Silence fell as everyone in the room, men and women alike, turned to glare at him - perhaps a large percentage had read a newspaper that morning.
“Hello,” said Heechul, without looking up, engrossed in trying to get the leading female’s hair just right. “Give me a minute, I’m just trying to -“ He stopped, gave one last spray of hairspray, and then turned to Hankyung with a grin. The girl glared at Hankyung in the mirror.
“Could I talk to you for a minute?” Hankyung asked, aware of everyone looking at them - Heechul didn’t seem to have noticed. “In private?”
“Yeah,” said Heechul, putting down his brush on the table next to him, as whispers broke out. He followed Hankyung out of the room and into the corridor; Hankyung had the sense to close the door behind them, though there was nothing he could do about the large windows that looked out onto them - everyone in the room was doing a bad attempt at not looking through at them.
“You seem very serious,” said Heechul, smirking at him. “Breaking up with me?”
“No, cheating on you,” shot back Hankyung, and grinned. “No, seriously, didn’t mean to be so - serious. It’s just that I had to - we have to-”
“Come on,” said Heechul, leaning back against the door and tapping his foot in impatience on the floor. “Some of us have a job to do.”
“I explained to my manager,” said Hankyung finally. “That it was you in the pictures. We - I - I wanted to check with you first, about whether we can tell that to the media at large.” Heechul just looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “I think,” continued Hankyung, his voice softening slightly, “that it would better in the long run - for you, that is. It would mean that you’d be able to do whatever you wanted, dress however you wanted.” He smiled slightly, and reached out and took Heechul’s hand, who was still just smirking at him. “I know you’re sick of trousers,” he added.
“Always thinking about me, Hannie,” said Heechul, and ignored the exasperated noise Hankyung made. He shrugged. “Fine with me,” he said. “I’m used to weird looks, and the hate mail can’t get any worse than what it is.”
“You’re being strangely optimistic,” said Hankyung, furrowing his eyebrows. “And my manager was strangely easy to convince that it would be a good idea. What’s happening with the world today?”
“Take advantage of it while you can,” said Heechul, one hand coming up to smooth his collar. “I plan on being ridiculously petty and cynical tomorrow, so be warned.”
“Duly noted,” said Hankyung, and pulled him forward to kiss him lightly, and when he pulled away he glanced to the side just in time to see three scandalized faces disappear from view.
“Heechul-shi?” One of the female hairdressers approached them almost as soon as they returned to the room - she pointedly ignored Hankyung, instead smiling comfortingly at Heechul, another stylists and one of the actresses behind her - Hankyung felt almost sad at the glares the actress sent his way, he’d been getting on quite well with her. “Could we talk to you? It’s urgent.”
“If it’s about the hairspray brand,” said Heechul, though he knew perfectly well what they were really talking about, “I’ve already told Sa-joon, there’s nothing I can do about it, you’ll have to take it up with management.”
“No,” said the girl, shaking her head sympathetically. “It’s something else. Can we?”
Heechul followed them out of the room and into one of the conference rooms down the hall - Hankyung followed them too, just in case Heechul decided to have a little fun and ruined his reputation even further. Heechul would probably enjoy that.
“Go away,” said one of the hair stylists, someone that he’d never spoken to before, and he was quite shocked by the venom in her voice. “We don’t want you here while we say this.”
“I’d like to stay,” said Hankyung mildly, leaning against the door frame. “I need to make sure you get all the facts.”
“Don’t trust me, do you?” Heechul flashed him a grin as he slipped into the seat that had been designated for him.
“You shouldn’t trust Hankyung-oppa,” said the actress, sitting down opposite Heechul. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Heechul-oppa, but Hankyung-oppa has been cheating on you.”
“What do you mean?” Heechul managed to put just the right amount of surprise into his voice, so that only Hankyung picked up on the mocking element. Really, he thought, Heechul should be in my line of work.
In response to his question, one of the girls unfolded the newspaper that she had been holding and placed it down in front of Heechul, so that the photo of them kissing was prominently displayed. Heechul looked at it, cocked his head to the side, picked it up, looked closely, and then turned to Hankyung.
“Hankyung,” he said, his tone absolutely heartbroken. “Are you cheating on me?”
“Fuck off,” said Hankyung in a playful tone. Heechul covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking; the girls glared at him.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” hissed one of them. “Not only were you sleeping around, you’re being absolutely foul to Heechul-shi when he’s just found out. I can’t believe it.”
“Neither can I,” said Heechul, sitting up, revealing dry eyes and a grin. “I mean, I looked gorgeous that night, couldn’t they have picked a better picture?” He picked the newspaper up again, looking closely. “I mean, seriously. It’s ridiculously bad quality.”
“My career is about to be ruined,” said Hankyung, coming into the room, “and all you’re bothered about is the terrible quality of the photographs. That’s what I can’t believe.”
“Heechul-oppa,” said the actress, looking at the two with uncertainty. “Hankyung-oppa is cheating on you, didn’t you hear?”
“No I’m not,” said Hankyung, taking the seat next to Heechul.
“No, he’s not,” said Heechul, smirking at the two girls. “That’s me in the photographs.”
“What?”
“That’s me, right there,” and he pointed to the ‘woman’, whose hands were pressed to Hankyung chest. The girls stared at him; he gave a heavy smile. “Is there no one in the world who recognises me? Is it really that hard to tell?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Hankyung with some force, feeling his victory to be within his grasp. Heechul pulled it away again with a sigh and a shrug and a disinterested whatever.
The girls stared some more. “What?”
“That’s unfair,” said the actress, sounding fairly miserable. “That’s so unfair; you’d probably make a better girl than I do.”
Heechul did not refute this; merely smirked and flicked his hair back.
“So,” said one of the hair stylists, confusion written over her face. “You’re a girl?”
Hankyung groaned and lay his head on the table.
***
The press conference that his manager held to explain the situation went as well as could be expected when you were informing the public that not only were you gay like they had been previously informed, you were also going out with a cross-dresser. The press had a field day with it - in some of the more celebrity driven newspapers, it made front page news, and that saddened Hankyung, because he wanted to make that page with something of substance, and pleased Heechul, who didn’t much care how he had managed it so long as he had managed it. His fan forum exploded, split into fractions, and Heechul sat on the computer for a couple of hours yelling news at him before Hankyung shut him up by dragging him into the bedroom (only way he could manage it, he claimed). And now there were a multitude of photographers outside their apartment block, and Heechul was standing at the end of the bed pulling on a skirt and looking at himself critically in the mirror.
“Can we not go?” asked Hankyung desperately. “Can we not just stay at home, where I can hide under the covers and pretend that nothing is happening?”
“No,” said Heechul firmly. “Just because your career is on the verge of collapse doesn’t mean that we have to miss going to see Siwon and Xiao Li. Don’t be so selfish.”
“I wouldn’t mind so much,” said Hankyung, aware that he was almost wailing now, “but you’re purposely wearing a skirt, just to make it worse for me.”
“Not everything is about you,” Heechul told him.
“No, but everything’s about you,” said Hankyung miserably. Heechul smirked at him.
When they left, Heechul was wearing the blue silk skirt that Xiao Li had bought him for his last birthday, and while Hankyung agreed with Heechul’s brushing off of but I look gorgeous, he still had felt the need to point out that the press had only just found out, and didn’t he think they should introduce them to the real Heechul slowly?
“So the whole world will see me being gorgeous,” Heechul had said. “So what?”
Hankyung had been panic stricken anyway, but when the doors to their apartment block slid open to reveal a never ending sea of camera flashes, he’d suddenly been very glad to have the familiar weight of Heechul’s hand in his. “Come on,” he muttered, and started to pull Heechul through the crowd of people. He kept his head down in order to get through easier: Heechul kept his head up, chin pushed up in an expression of defiance, as if daring anyone to say anything about his lifestyle choices. There was shouting and calling of questions, and Heechul stepped a little closer, and then suddenly they were in the car that Siwon had sent for them (unusual, but then what had happened that week was unusual), and they practically fell into it and then there was blissful silence as the doors shut and the driver drove away.
“Wow,” said Heechul, and his hand found Hankyung’s again on the cool leather of the seat, and squeezed lightly, fingers shaking slightly, and Hankyung smiled at him and they spent the journey in silence.
There were quite a few photographers in front of Siwon and Xiao Li’s house - it was well known that they were friends, but Hankyung hadn’t been expecting anything like that, and it made him worry a little bit for his other friends who might have been dragged up in it on his behalf; Ryeowook and Yehsung were out of the country on tour together, and Kyuhyun had joined them for the current part of it, but Eunhyuk, Shindong and Donghae would no doubt be getting a grilling about it. Hopefully Sungmin and Kibum would be able to avoid the worst of it, and he doubted that anyone knew where Kangin and Eeteuk lived. He made a mental note to ring them all and find out what was happening.
“I’m sorry,” said Hankyung, the second they burst into the front door of the house to see Xiao Li smiling at them. “I’m really sorry for all this.”
“It’s fine, Geng,” said Xiao Li, taking his coat. “Don’t be such a - I don’t know the right word for it.”
“Wet blanket,” supplied Heechul.
“Pompous moron,” said Xiao Li in Chinese, and laughed as Hankyung, who had been glaring at Heechul, turned his annoyed expression onto her. “I like Heechul’s better, though,” she added in Korean, and Heechul smirked smugly at him.
“Siwon,” said Hankyung loudly, walking into the main room and leaving the two smiling at each other. “Siwon, your wife is picking on me.”
“Welcome to the club,” said Siwon heavily, though he grinned at him and quickly handed him a drink. “I figure that drinking that is the only way to deal with it.”
“We should get out,” decided Hankyung, nodding his head as Heechul and Xiao Li came into the room. “We should go out and get completely drunk and run away to a place together where there’s no such thing as significant others who are only there to make your life incredibly difficult.”
“So you are cheating on me,” said Heechul, raising an eyebrow and sitting down. Hankyung laughed and sat down next to him.
“Any idea when this is going to wind down?” asked Xiao Li sympathetically, giving Heechul a glass of wine.
“No,” sighed Hankyung. “Though my manager thinks it should be over in a week.”
“If nothing else comes out.” Heechul reminded him.
“Thank you for your cynicism,” said Hankyung.
***
That Sunday, Hankyung padded into the kitchen and set about making a cup of coffee without really looking at Heechul, who was sitting at the unit table and reading the newspaper; he was still half asleep, had only gotten out of bed because Heechul was already up, and he yawned as he poured his coffee out, unintentionally messing his already messy hair up with his free hand as he did so.
He had just put the coffee pot down when he realised that there was something wrong, that something didn’t seem in any way right, and it took him a second to realise that Heechul hadn’t said anything, hadn’t answered to his mumble of “Good morning.” He looked over at him.
Heechul was sitting bolt upright, staring at a page in the newspaper, shock on his face, and Hankyung looked at him for too long and burnt his hand on his cup of coffee; he set it down hurriedly on the kitchen unit next to him, and was just about to walk over to find out what was wrong when Heechul’s face crumpled, and he covered his face with his hands and his shoulders began to shake.
Hankyung almost kicked the table leg trying to get over to find out what had caused Heechul to burst into tears, the occurrence of something so rare making his heart jump to his throat. He was completely silent, just trembling, and Hankyung knew that it must be something truly terrible, something unbelievably bad, for him to have reacted like that - and then he caught sight of the newspaper article.
STAR OF HEART OF A GHOST IN NEW SCANDAL was emblazoned across the top.
“What the-” He snatched up the newspaper and looked at it in horror, scanning the pages quickly in order to get some sort of an idea as to what the hell it was talking about; apparently, this time, he had really been going out with a girl - a real girl - and it had been going on for almost as long he’d been going out with Heechul. His horrified expression turned to Heechul.
“Heechul,” he said, putting the newspaper down with shaking hands and placing his fingers on his shoulder. “Heechul, you don’t - tell me you don’t believe this.”
Heechul didn’t answer him, though his shoulders began to shake even harder, and Hankyung went around the edge of the table to bend down next to him, pulling him around until he would have been facing him if he didn’t still have his hands over his face. “Heechul,” he said desperately. “Heechul, listen to me. I haven’t - I wouldn’t do that, you have to believe me. Heechul. Please, I’m not cheating on you.”
“Stop it,” gasped Heechul, and Hankyung fell silent as he removed his hands and while there tears in his eyes, they weren’t from crying but rather through laughter; Hankyung sat down heavily on the floor. “Oh my god,” said Heechul breathlessly, still breaking off into laughter. “Are you trying to kill me? Why were you being so serious?”
“Don’t,” said Hankyung shakily. “Don’t - Heechul, don’t joke, I thought-”
“Have you read it?” asked Heechul, smirking at him. “It’s a load of rubbish; I know it’s not true.”
Hankyung swallowed, boxing down the utter panic that had overtaken him at the idea that Heechul had believed that he was cheating on him, and stood up and picked up the newspaper to read properly.
’We’d been going out for five years’ says Park Soojin, an employee at the Chunjo Bank in the south east of Seoul. ‘He asked me out in our last year of high school - he claimed that Heechul wasn’t really the one he wanted, but he couldn’t risk losing his friends - and I supported him throughout his time of working his way up his career ladder. Of course, as soon as he became famous, he dumped me. I realise now that he’s not as good of a man as I believed him to be.’
“What the hell,” said Hankyung, pulling a face of disgusted confusion. The name sounded familiar to him; he thought about it while Heechul lay his forehead on the table and laughed some more.
“Aha!” Suddenly, it struck him; a petite girl with short black hair and shrewd eyes, hovering over him and saying his name in a revered fashion. “I know her!”
“So you are cheating on me,” said Heechul with a frown, and Hankyung’s blood ran cold until he realised that he was joking.
“Don’t-” he started, and then gave up. “You know her too,” he said, and folded the paper over to show Heechul the picture that had been printed.
“Park Soojin,” read Heechul, and looked confused. “I don’t know anyone named that.”
“Well, we don’t know her,” admitted Hankyung. “We used to know her - she was the fan club leader.”
“Ah!” said Heechul loudly, and poked at the paper and almost put a hole in it. “The crazy one!”
“Yeah,” agreed Hankyung, and looked a bit more closely at the photograph of the girl. “Yeah, the crazy one.”
***
Hankyung, however, wasn’t too sure as to whether the girl really was crazy, or whether she just knew a good publicity campaign when she knew one. The two hid in their flat for the rest of the day, and by the next morning Soojin was in every tabloid in the city, her story made up of lies selling for more and more as she added more and more detail to it, and there was a multitude of journalists outside the flat, all dying to know what Hankyung had to say to his latest scandal.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t hide there for another day; Hankyung had to try and defuse the situation again before he was ruined, while Heechul was so bored that he was practically banging the door down on Monday in order to get to work. They decided to travel together, but that was mainly because they weren’t too sure whether they’d get both cars through the crowd.
Heechul paused as they stepped out of the lift and saw just how many people had gathered outside the glass front of the apartment block - Hankyung took a step forward, stopped, and turned to look at him. “Look,” said Heechul with a grin, sweeping his arm around in a semi-circle to indicate the people outside. “You’re famous!”
“Shut up,” said Hankyung, rolling his eyes at him, and he took his hand and walked out of the doors holding on tight, because he didn’t have any idea as to what was going to happen.
What happened was a barrage of questioning, so many so fast that he couldn’t quite work out what anyone was saying; he couldn’t pick out one to answer, and he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to answer them anyway. “Um,” he said, and glanced at Heechul, who swallowed and smiled at him, and squeezed his hand a little harder. “Um, no comment.”
“Hankyung,” called one man as they tried to push their way through. “Is it true that you cheated on Heechul?”
“Are the rumours that you and Heechul are on the verge of breaking up true?” called another as they neared the car.
Heechul span around, hair flying, to glare at the two who had been audible over the din of everyone else. “No,” he said fiercely. “No to both of the questions.”
The press looked at him with some shock, drawing back slightly at the angry expression on his face. Hankyung could have kissed him, but instead he just opened his car door and got in, knowing that Heechul would join him the moment he became bored of glowering.
Heechul had been right to be cynical, and when they arrived at Hankyung’s company half an hour later, his manager was waiting for him just inside the door, and immediately pulled the two into his office. “The fact that Heechul is here tells it all,” he said, holding a hand up to stop him when Hankyung tried to say something. “I can take it that none of it is true?”
“None of it,” said Hankyung firmly, and then wavered. “Well. Some of it. We did know her in high school, but I never went out with her.”
“This is ridiculous,” said his manager, sitting down and burying his head in his hands. “Why the hell is she going around saying any of this? I have more important things to be doing than arranging press conferences because some crazy woman is being crazy.”
Hankyung’s phone rang then, and after glancing at his manager, who didn’t move, he slipped out of the room to take the call, fingers brushing over Heechul’s shoulder as he went. “Hello?” he said, wandering down the hallway to pull at the blinds to look at the press down below, and then slipping into an empty office to gain some privacy.
“Kibum says to tell you that he still knows how to box,” said Donghae’s voice, serious and more than a little threatening. “And I want you to remember that while I haven’t have training, I can still totally take you on in a fist fight.”
“Oh,” said Hankyung. “It’s not true; you don’t have to do that.”
“Oh good,” said Donghae brightly, and really, Hankyung wished he lived in Donghae’s world, where everything really was that simple. “We didn’t think it was true, but just in case - you can never be too careful.”
“Yeah,” said Hankyung.
“But you know, we would have still done it,” said Donghae, and his voice was back to being threatening. “If you had been cheating on Heechul. We would have fucked you up so much your mother wouldn’t recognise you.”
“For the love of god, Donghae!” Hankyung glanced out at the press again. “I’m getting this talk now? This is the sort of thing you say early on in the relationship, not seven years down the line!”
“We forgot to do it because you seem like such a nice guy.” Donghae laughed, and Hankyung groaned. “We knew that it wasn’t true. But we just wanted to make sure.”
“I know,” said Hankyung. “I hope the others don’t think that it’s true.”
“If it’s any comfort, Sungmin just laughed at us when we asked if he wanted to pass a message on,” said Donghae. “He said that the chance of you cheating on Heechul was as much as the chance of Kyuhyun cheating on him, and that was practically nothing because both he and Heechul are too alluring for their men to think about looking at anyone else.”
On second thoughts, Hankyung wanted to live in Sungmin’s world - it seemed so confident.
Hankyung ended the call with a long suffering sigh, and went back to his manager’s office, where the man was still sitting with his face in his hands, but Heechul was nowhere to be seen. He was informed that he had gone to find a toilet, but Heechul had never been in this part of the building before, so Hankyung went after him before he got lost. A woman at the end of the hallway told him that Heechul had headed downstairs, and when Hankyung got to the ground floor, he could see Heechul walking through the glass doors at the front, straight into the press.
“Heechul!” yelled Hankyung, and sprinted after him, coming to an abrupt stop when he was suddenly outside the doors, and Heechul just stood there in front of all the cameras going off in their faces and looked at him with a coolly raised eyebrow.
“Oh,” said Hankyung, and smiled sheepishly at him.
“I have something to say,” said Heechul, turning that cool look onto the people standing in front of him. They were not used to the expression, and a couple of the closer reporters looked a little apprehensive. “The first thing is, wow, slow news day? The second is that newspapers need to start checking their sources, because then they’ll see that what they printed was not only untrue, but also a little insane, and upsetting for many people.”
“So Hankyung-shi denies the claims made by Park-shi?” called one man. Hankyung opened his mouth to say something, but Heechul answered before he could.
“Of course he does,” he said dismissively. “We knew the girl in high school, yes. We weren’t friends; in fact, we hated each other. I don’t want to sink to her level, but this is the simple truth: she was obsessed with Hankyung, and with the others too. She tried many times to break us up, and this, apparently, is simply another in a long line of attempts.”
“Heechul,” said Hankyung quietly. “Come on, you don’t have to-”
“She claims to have spent Hankyung’s twentieth birthday with him - in fact, we threw a party at the flat he owned then, and he spent the day surrounded by friends. There are, at least, fourteen people who can clarify this. Other things, they can be disproved just as easily. None of it’s true.”
“Does Hankyung-ah have anything to say?” asked another voice.
“I’m not,” said Hankyung, falling over his words a little. “Seriously, I’m not - I wouldn’t-”
“Hankyung wouldn’t,” said Heechul, looking so confident and assured (and also a little scary) that Hankyung was shocked to find that his fingers were shaking when he took his hand.
“What about Park-shi’s claims of promiscuity in Heechul-shi’s youth?” asked the same reporter. His voice seemed a little gleeful at the scandal.
Heechul went tense, and his face lost its self-possessed look for a moment. “Still?” he asked. “Does that girl never find any new material?”
“That claim is not true,” said Hankyung coldly, so coldly that Heechul glanced at him with some shock. “Come on,” he said, and he tugged Heechul back into the building, refusing to allow any protest. His manager was just hurrying down the stairs towards them.
“Hankyung!” he yelled. “What the hell do you think you were doing, you’ve probably ruined any chance we had of having a serious press conference about this!”
Hankyung shrugged. “You try stopping Heechul when he puts his mind to it,” he said.
“They totally messed my hair up,” complained Heechul, preening in the mirror near reception.
***
It merely took a week for the whole situation to die down, after the press conference that his manager did hold. It turned out that the impromptu report given by Heechul did much to support Hankyung’s case, and before long Park Soojin had faded into the background, another girl to claim to have slept with someone famous only for it to backfire on her. It gave Yehsung quite a laugh when he came back from Japan to hear about it - Ryeowook, luckily, didn’t find it quite so hilarious, and so offered some form of sympathy. Kyuhyun, meanwhile, was forced to sign a ‘no-cheating’ policy by Sungmin, and he did so with the long suffering air of someone who knew through experience that if he didn’t do so, then he wouldn’t get any. Hankyung was reminded once again of how relatively lucky he was by dating Heechul.
“And anyway,” said Siwon, as Xiao Li sat in Heechul’s lap and laughed with him about something (Hankyung and Siwon didn’t even bat an eyelid at this sort of behaviour any more; neither tried to work out how their significant other’s mind worked). “You got a new contract for a film on the back of all this publicity.”
“I’d rather have gotten it based on my acting,” said Hankyung, scrunching his nose up and taking a sip of the strong alcohol that he had made Siwon dig up from somewhere. “Besides, don’t let Heechul hear you talk about that. He can’t stop laughing about it.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a romance film,” explained Hankyung. “If I’m going to act, he says, then I should at least do worthwhile things.”
“Don’t listen to Rella,” said Siwon, with a casual air that came from knowing exactly when not to listen to Heechul. “You’ll be Jaymin’s hero for some times. Anyway, romance films and dramas are very worthwhile.”
“Don’t tell Hannie to not listen to me,” called Heechul. “If he doesn’t listen to me, he’ll never get anything done.”
“And you only say they’re worthwhile because you’re the master of them,” said Xiao Li. Heechul cackled. Siwon made a noise of annoyance and Xiao Li just grinned at him. “Don’t worry,” she trilled. “You make a very good prince character.”
“Why did I marry you again?” asked Siwon.
“Because I’m gorgeous,” said Xiao Li, dipping her voice in an impression of Heechul, and then immediately pulling said man back into conversation before Siwon could retort.
***
Hankyung was brushing his teeth when Heechul came back into the bedroom with the newspaper and threw himself on his front to read it. Hankyung glanced at him through the open door, tightened his towel around his waist because Heechul had an annoying habit of quickly darting through and stealing it, and then continued, roused only when Heechul let out a bark of laughter.
“Oh, this is brilliant!” he gasped, and dropped the newspaper and rolled onto his back, howling. “That is just - that’s fantastic!”
“Huh?” Hankyung put his head around the door to look at him, a little dumbfounded.
“Apparently,” said Heechul, “you are now cheating on me with Siwon.” He sat up and noticed that Hankyung was practically naked; his eyes darkened a little. Hankyung, on the other hand, was staring in shock. The toothbrush fell from his mouth.
“What?” he asked, rushed back into the bathroom, quickly spat and rinsed his mouth out, and came back into the bedroom, Heechul watching him carefully the whole way.
“Yeah,” he said, with a smirk. “They’ve even got a photograph of you two hugging from when we were at the house two days ago.”
“Oh god,” said Hankyung, and sat down heavily on the bed. Heechul draped his arms over his shoulders and kissed his neck. “God hates me.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” murmured Heechul, fingers deftly undoing the knot at his waist. “But Hannie; my best friend, how could you do that to me?”
“Oh god,” repeated Hankyung. “My life is so hard.”
Heechul laughed dirtily.
“Not like that,” groaned Hankyung. “Oh, I blame you for all of this.”
“That’s nice,” said Heechul, pulling him down on the bed. “Is that really the way that you treat the man who you claimed to love when really you were cheating on him with his best friend?”
“I’m never going to be able to look Siwon in the face again,” said Hankyung.
“Really, I’m heartbroken here,” said Heechul, licking his collarbone. “I mean, keeping it secret all this time. How long, Hannie? How long?”
“I can’t believe you,” said Hankyung, fingers sliding under Heechul’s tank top. “Why, why are you like this? And stop calling me that.”
“Fuck,” said Heechul, rubbing their hips together. “You are so hot when you’re flustered.”
If it had been anyone else, Hankyung honestly would have laughed at the idea that the entire thing had been orchestrated simply because Heechul found him hot when he got embarrassed and flustered and kind of wanted to have sex. However, this was Heechul - the idea was more than a little plausible. Hankyung was scared of Heechul sometimes.
Fandom: Super Junior AU (High School)
Pairing: Hankyung/Heechul
Word count: 7,627
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “Apparently,” he called to Heechul, who was brushing his teeth in the adjacent en-suite bathroom, “I’m cheating on you.”
A/N: This has no real storyline, and I’ve been writing it for months, and it’s so long! Really, how do I manage to achieve this level of time wasting?
A few things. Mainly I just wanted to write Heechul’s reaction to a claim that Hankyung was cheating on him, and it got away from me. Xiao Li and Siwon totally get married - this is set not long after their wedding, something I plan on writing at some point, because there are important things to be addressed in it. I know that it’s not really plausible for all of the relationships to have survived this long, but the whole original story line wasn’t really plausible, so yes XD.
I love Siwon-Hankyung-Heechul-Xiao Li BFFery so much, yes I do.
Young actor Hankyung won the hearts of millions last year with his breathtaking breakthrough role in popular drama “Me and You”, and he is the star in the recently released film, “Heart of a Ghost” (See review on page 41).
And his long-term relationship of seven years with hair stylist Kim Heechul, who was the brains behind many of the styles seen in the film, endeared him to yet many more - his award for “Best New Actor” at this year’s national films awards was dedicated to Heechul.
Yet, our exclusive pictures show that all may not be well in the relationship, and that Hankyung may, in fact, be cheating on his partner.
Hankyung was snapped coming out of a restaurant close to the city flat he shares with Heechul, holding the hand of a tall woman.
The two were spotted together late in the evening, and were chatting and laughing as they both got into a taxi.
The restaurant owner refused to comment, but a witness told us that the two sat in a secluded corner booth, with low lighting, and seemed to know each other quite well.
“They seemed to be celebrating something,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. “I only noticed because my wife is a fan of Hankyung and commented on how weird it was to see him out with Heechul.”
Indeed, all fans of the actor will be left wondering the same thing.
How many more will creep out of wood work in the light of this scandal?
“Um,” said Hankyung, staring at the tabloid article and the grainy black-and-white picture that accompanied it. “Apparently,” he called to Heechul, who was brushing his teeth in the adjacent en-suite bathroom, “I’m cheating on you.”
Heechul’s head appeared around the door, toothbrush in his hand as he looked at him with furrowed eyebrows. “Who with?” he managed around his mouthful of froth.
“You,” said Hankyung, peering closely at the photograph and turning it upside down to see if that would help. “I think. It’s hard to tell.”
Heechul disappeared again, and after a minute he came out of the bathroom, wiping at his mouth with a towel. “What are you talking about?” he asked, throwing the towel on the bed and opening the wardrobe. “You’re making less sense than a drunken Donghae.”
“Remember when we went out a couple of nights ago for that meal?” Hankyung asked, pushing himself into a sitting position on the bed. “I was seen ‘holding the hand of a tall woman’, who ‘I seemed to know quite well’.”
“I suppose the last bit is true,” said Heechul, looking as though he was on the verge of laughter as he took the newspaper from Hankyung’s hands. “These people are all nuts, it’s obviously me.”
“No, it’s not,” said Hankyung. His argument that it was never ‘obviously’ Heechul had become as habitual as his reminder that Heechul was not a girl - he barely even noticed that he was saying it any more. “I don’t know how they know that’s me, never mind expecting them to realise that that’s you.”
“What’s this bit at the end mean?” Heechul didn’t seem to be listening. “Are they suggesting you’re a playboy or something?” He seemed a little too excited by that thought - in fact, he slid a hand up Hankyung’s chest and pressed himself close. “I’ve always wanted to date a playboy,” he purred.
“Now you tell me,” joked Hankyung, and then he struggled to regain his focus. Seven years had not diminished Heechul’s powers of seduction - in fact, they had grown rather, because now he knew exactly what to do. Hankyung stood up before Heechul could employ any of the underhand tactics that he had at his disposal. “This is serous,” he told Heechul, who stretched out on the bed and pouted at the rejection. “If people honestly believe that I’m cheating on you, then I could lose a large part of my fan base, and they’re important this early in my career.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Heechul, and arched his back up off the bed.
“But on the other hand, the criticism if it came out that it was you in the pictures could be so bad that it caused the end of my career anyway, and I think that…” He trailed off as Heechul stretched a hand out to him, his eyes dark and sultry.
“You worry too much,” he said in a low voice. “You need to relax.”
“And I suppose you’re going to help me with that,” said Hankyung, who knew exactly what Heechul meant by ‘relax’, and while the prospect was tempting, it wasn’t actually going to help his situation.
“Too much talking,” said Heechul with a smirk. “Not enough kissing me. You need to make up for cheating on me, with me.”
Hankyung indulged himself in a little yell, aware that he wasn’t going to get anything sensible out of Heechul, not when he was in this mood. However, he was also aware that if he wanted someone helpful, he should have fallen in love with Ryeowook or Eeteuk, and not Heechul, who still thought nothing of punching him if he tried to wake him up. “You’re not being very helpful,” he said miserably.
“I wasn’t trying to be helpful,” said Heechul, standing up and pulling a towel from the top of the wardrobe. “However, I am going to take a shower.” He paused by the door and glanced over his shoulder at Hankyung, invitation in his eyes, hip jutting out just so. “Fancy joining me?”
“Fine,” sighed Hankyung, and grabbed a towel for himself.
***
Siwon rang him while he was driving to his manager’s office to try to diffuse the situation. Hankyung cursed the hands free set for making him able to take the call, cursed Heechul for causing the whole thing, and then cursed God for his whole life. Then he cursed Heechul again, just because.
“Go away,” he said after he’d pressed the ‘take call’ button, before Siwon could say anything whatsoever.
“I take it you’ve seen it then,” said Siwon with a tense laugh.
“Of course I’ve seen it,” said Hankyung. “I’m on my way to the agency right now to see if we can get the paper to retract it. Hopefully if they apologise straight away, it will stop any rumours.”
“Oh,” said Siwon. “Oh, I thought you - oh.”
“What?” Hankyung asked impatiently, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he waited at some red lights.
“It’s not just one newspaper, Hankyung. It’s in practically every tabloid in Seoul.”
The car stalled. Hankyung cursed again.
“You’re going to have to sort it out quickly though,” said Siwon. “This could ruin you.”
“I know,” said Hankyung, stuck at yet another set of traffic lights. “God, Siwon, why me?”
“God hates you,” said Siwon, completely dead pan. “He told me so.” There was a brief commotion in the background, and it took a few seconds for Siwon to say anything else. “Xiao Li says hi,” he said finally.
“She tried to grab the phone off you again, didn’t she?” Hankyung asked, as he finally pulled into the car park of the agency.
“Yes,” said Siwon with a long suffering sigh, amusement in his voice. “She doesn’t seem to understand the concept of private conversations.”
“Come for dinner,” yelled Xiao Li in Chinese in the background.
“She spends too much time with Heechul,” said Hankyung with a sigh very similar to Siwon’s, as he switched the engine off and held the mobile to his ear. “He seems to think the entire thing is hilarious.”
“Rella thinks anything even remotely chaotic is hilarious,” said Siwon and Hankyung had to admit that he had a point. “I’m going to go,” he continued, “before Xiao Li pokes my eye out because I won’t give her the - ow! She hit me!”
“Bye, Siwon,” said Hankyung, and hung up before Xiao Li managed to get the phone and pulled him into a long conversation about the health benefits of Chinese food, the relaxation benefits of Chinese aromatherapy, and the combined benefits of her own food, which she seemed to think he never ate enough of despite eating at the house at least once a week.
***
“You absolute moron,” were his manager’s words when he walked through the door of the office; they had apparently been planned in advance, prepared for his arrival, and he looked as though he had a speech that he wanted to say. Hankyung paused, decided not to say anything, and came into the room and sat down.
“I can’t believe,” said the older man, glaring at him, “that you would be stupid enough to have an affair with someone so close to home. I mean, couldn’t you have gone to a love hotel with the girl, right in the outskirts of town, where no one has even heard of cameras? No, you had to take her to a restaurant on the posh side of town, crawling with paparazzi, and then take her back to your place! What, you thought that people weren’t going to recognise you?”
“No,” said Hankyung slowly, and then stopped again. “Wait, how did you know we went back to the flat?”
In reply his manager rummaged around in his desk for a few seconds and pulled out a stack of newspapers, flicked through, pulled a certain one out, one notorious for its celebrity coverage, and threw it down in front of Hankyung, who jumped as he saw the large photo on the front page. It had been taken in front of the block, Hankyung kissing the ‘mystery woman’ - he could remember it, him struggling to get the key from his pocket, Heechul being his usual unhelpful self by half-pulling him to the side to kiss him, laughing against his lips as Hankyung groaned about that being distracting. He gave himself a little shake to pull himself back to the present, where the tabloid was claiming, yet again, that he was a dirty stinking lying cheat, to paraphrase.
“Now,” said his manager, with the air of trying to explain something very simple to someone very dumb, “I don’t mind that you’ve been having an affair - in this business, everyone does. What is absolutely fucking retarded is that you’ve conducted it so near to where you live, where anyone who recognised you would be able to tell on you. And now I’ve got to try to sort this mess out before you lose so many jobs that we can’t get you any work at all.”
“Oh,” said Hankyung. “Oh, I’m not having an affair, though.”
“My newspapers beg to differ,” retorted his manager.
“But I’m not,” said Hankyung earnestly. “Seriously, that’s not some other woman that I’ve been messing around with.”
His manager just stared at him, with his eye brows raised. “Seriously,” repeated Hankyung. “Don’t you think that the person in the pictures looks remarkably familiar?”
“No,” said the man bluntly. “I think it looks like you and some woman.”
“It’s not,” said Hankyung forcefully. “That’s Heechul.”
There was a pause. His manager raised his eyebrows, glanced at the picture again, and then looked back to Hankyung. “I’ve heard some excuses in my time,” he said, amusement rife in his voice, “but that one is stupidly unique.”
“It’s not an excuse,” said Hankyung loudly. “I’m not lying, that is honestly Heechul.”
His manager started at him. “No,” he mumbled, “you don’t lie, do you?” And he picked up the paper again, looked closely at it, and then said, “Heechul, you say?” And he continued to stare at it, making noises in the back of his throat as Hankyung sat and waited for it to click.
“Good lord,” said his manager after around five minutes. “You’re right!” Hankyung fought back the urge to say I know I am, and instead just nodded his head encouragingly. “But how?” His manager went on. “I mean, Heechul’s a guy, I’ve met him before.”
“He likes to dress as a girl sometimes,” said Hankyung with a shrug. He had had to explain this before, and he had found that if he acted unbothered by it, then the other person tended to have the same reaction. “Well, more than sometimes. Most of the time. He’s been careful since the press found out about us in the first place, but I guess we just forgot.”
“You want to get your memories checked out,” said his manager, but he didn’t seem to be listening that much. He gave himself a little shake and put the newspaper down. “The question is, what are we going to do now?”
“I was hoping,” said Hankyung, aware that it was going to sound like a rather strange request, “that we’d be able to just tell the truth. I mean,” he added, as his manager looked at him like he was crazy, “if we don’t, then the rumours are just going to keep following us. Heechul’s not going to give up dressing like he does anytime soon, and I’m not going to make him. If it’s okay with you, and okay with Heechul, then I want to just tell the truth.”
“That’s risky in this business,” said his manager with a frown. “Telling the truth, I mean. Very rare. But I suppose the truth in this case sounds so far-fetched that it could just work in our favour. Fine, ask Heechul. I want an answer by the end of the day, mind you.”
“Fine,” said Hankyung, and was struck by the feeling that that had been too easy. People worried him sometimes.
***
“Hey,” said Hankyung as he walked into the hair section of the drama that he was currently shooting. Heechul had managed to get a job on the same shoot, and while Yehsung teased him about riding in on his boyfriend’s fame, Heechul had applied for the job before Hankyung had even found out that he’d received the part. Silence fell as everyone in the room, men and women alike, turned to glare at him - perhaps a large percentage had read a newspaper that morning.
“Hello,” said Heechul, without looking up, engrossed in trying to get the leading female’s hair just right. “Give me a minute, I’m just trying to -“ He stopped, gave one last spray of hairspray, and then turned to Hankyung with a grin. The girl glared at Hankyung in the mirror.
“Could I talk to you for a minute?” Hankyung asked, aware of everyone looking at them - Heechul didn’t seem to have noticed. “In private?”
“Yeah,” said Heechul, putting down his brush on the table next to him, as whispers broke out. He followed Hankyung out of the room and into the corridor; Hankyung had the sense to close the door behind them, though there was nothing he could do about the large windows that looked out onto them - everyone in the room was doing a bad attempt at not looking through at them.
“You seem very serious,” said Heechul, smirking at him. “Breaking up with me?”
“No, cheating on you,” shot back Hankyung, and grinned. “No, seriously, didn’t mean to be so - serious. It’s just that I had to - we have to-”
“Come on,” said Heechul, leaning back against the door and tapping his foot in impatience on the floor. “Some of us have a job to do.”
“I explained to my manager,” said Hankyung finally. “That it was you in the pictures. We - I - I wanted to check with you first, about whether we can tell that to the media at large.” Heechul just looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “I think,” continued Hankyung, his voice softening slightly, “that it would better in the long run - for you, that is. It would mean that you’d be able to do whatever you wanted, dress however you wanted.” He smiled slightly, and reached out and took Heechul’s hand, who was still just smirking at him. “I know you’re sick of trousers,” he added.
“Always thinking about me, Hannie,” said Heechul, and ignored the exasperated noise Hankyung made. He shrugged. “Fine with me,” he said. “I’m used to weird looks, and the hate mail can’t get any worse than what it is.”
“You’re being strangely optimistic,” said Hankyung, furrowing his eyebrows. “And my manager was strangely easy to convince that it would be a good idea. What’s happening with the world today?”
“Take advantage of it while you can,” said Heechul, one hand coming up to smooth his collar. “I plan on being ridiculously petty and cynical tomorrow, so be warned.”
“Duly noted,” said Hankyung, and pulled him forward to kiss him lightly, and when he pulled away he glanced to the side just in time to see three scandalized faces disappear from view.
“Heechul-shi?” One of the female hairdressers approached them almost as soon as they returned to the room - she pointedly ignored Hankyung, instead smiling comfortingly at Heechul, another stylists and one of the actresses behind her - Hankyung felt almost sad at the glares the actress sent his way, he’d been getting on quite well with her. “Could we talk to you? It’s urgent.”
“If it’s about the hairspray brand,” said Heechul, though he knew perfectly well what they were really talking about, “I’ve already told Sa-joon, there’s nothing I can do about it, you’ll have to take it up with management.”
“No,” said the girl, shaking her head sympathetically. “It’s something else. Can we?”
Heechul followed them out of the room and into one of the conference rooms down the hall - Hankyung followed them too, just in case Heechul decided to have a little fun and ruined his reputation even further. Heechul would probably enjoy that.
“Go away,” said one of the hair stylists, someone that he’d never spoken to before, and he was quite shocked by the venom in her voice. “We don’t want you here while we say this.”
“I’d like to stay,” said Hankyung mildly, leaning against the door frame. “I need to make sure you get all the facts.”
“Don’t trust me, do you?” Heechul flashed him a grin as he slipped into the seat that had been designated for him.
“You shouldn’t trust Hankyung-oppa,” said the actress, sitting down opposite Heechul. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Heechul-oppa, but Hankyung-oppa has been cheating on you.”
“What do you mean?” Heechul managed to put just the right amount of surprise into his voice, so that only Hankyung picked up on the mocking element. Really, he thought, Heechul should be in my line of work.
In response to his question, one of the girls unfolded the newspaper that she had been holding and placed it down in front of Heechul, so that the photo of them kissing was prominently displayed. Heechul looked at it, cocked his head to the side, picked it up, looked closely, and then turned to Hankyung.
“Hankyung,” he said, his tone absolutely heartbroken. “Are you cheating on me?”
“Fuck off,” said Hankyung in a playful tone. Heechul covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking; the girls glared at him.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” hissed one of them. “Not only were you sleeping around, you’re being absolutely foul to Heechul-shi when he’s just found out. I can’t believe it.”
“Neither can I,” said Heechul, sitting up, revealing dry eyes and a grin. “I mean, I looked gorgeous that night, couldn’t they have picked a better picture?” He picked the newspaper up again, looking closely. “I mean, seriously. It’s ridiculously bad quality.”
“My career is about to be ruined,” said Hankyung, coming into the room, “and all you’re bothered about is the terrible quality of the photographs. That’s what I can’t believe.”
“Heechul-oppa,” said the actress, looking at the two with uncertainty. “Hankyung-oppa is cheating on you, didn’t you hear?”
“No I’m not,” said Hankyung, taking the seat next to Heechul.
“No, he’s not,” said Heechul, smirking at the two girls. “That’s me in the photographs.”
“What?”
“That’s me, right there,” and he pointed to the ‘woman’, whose hands were pressed to Hankyung chest. The girls stared at him; he gave a heavy smile. “Is there no one in the world who recognises me? Is it really that hard to tell?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Hankyung with some force, feeling his victory to be within his grasp. Heechul pulled it away again with a sigh and a shrug and a disinterested whatever.
The girls stared some more. “What?”
“That’s unfair,” said the actress, sounding fairly miserable. “That’s so unfair; you’d probably make a better girl than I do.”
Heechul did not refute this; merely smirked and flicked his hair back.
“So,” said one of the hair stylists, confusion written over her face. “You’re a girl?”
Hankyung groaned and lay his head on the table.
***
The press conference that his manager held to explain the situation went as well as could be expected when you were informing the public that not only were you gay like they had been previously informed, you were also going out with a cross-dresser. The press had a field day with it - in some of the more celebrity driven newspapers, it made front page news, and that saddened Hankyung, because he wanted to make that page with something of substance, and pleased Heechul, who didn’t much care how he had managed it so long as he had managed it. His fan forum exploded, split into fractions, and Heechul sat on the computer for a couple of hours yelling news at him before Hankyung shut him up by dragging him into the bedroom (only way he could manage it, he claimed). And now there were a multitude of photographers outside their apartment block, and Heechul was standing at the end of the bed pulling on a skirt and looking at himself critically in the mirror.
“Can we not go?” asked Hankyung desperately. “Can we not just stay at home, where I can hide under the covers and pretend that nothing is happening?”
“No,” said Heechul firmly. “Just because your career is on the verge of collapse doesn’t mean that we have to miss going to see Siwon and Xiao Li. Don’t be so selfish.”
“I wouldn’t mind so much,” said Hankyung, aware that he was almost wailing now, “but you’re purposely wearing a skirt, just to make it worse for me.”
“Not everything is about you,” Heechul told him.
“No, but everything’s about you,” said Hankyung miserably. Heechul smirked at him.
When they left, Heechul was wearing the blue silk skirt that Xiao Li had bought him for his last birthday, and while Hankyung agreed with Heechul’s brushing off of but I look gorgeous, he still had felt the need to point out that the press had only just found out, and didn’t he think they should introduce them to the real Heechul slowly?
“So the whole world will see me being gorgeous,” Heechul had said. “So what?”
Hankyung had been panic stricken anyway, but when the doors to their apartment block slid open to reveal a never ending sea of camera flashes, he’d suddenly been very glad to have the familiar weight of Heechul’s hand in his. “Come on,” he muttered, and started to pull Heechul through the crowd of people. He kept his head down in order to get through easier: Heechul kept his head up, chin pushed up in an expression of defiance, as if daring anyone to say anything about his lifestyle choices. There was shouting and calling of questions, and Heechul stepped a little closer, and then suddenly they were in the car that Siwon had sent for them (unusual, but then what had happened that week was unusual), and they practically fell into it and then there was blissful silence as the doors shut and the driver drove away.
“Wow,” said Heechul, and his hand found Hankyung’s again on the cool leather of the seat, and squeezed lightly, fingers shaking slightly, and Hankyung smiled at him and they spent the journey in silence.
There were quite a few photographers in front of Siwon and Xiao Li’s house - it was well known that they were friends, but Hankyung hadn’t been expecting anything like that, and it made him worry a little bit for his other friends who might have been dragged up in it on his behalf; Ryeowook and Yehsung were out of the country on tour together, and Kyuhyun had joined them for the current part of it, but Eunhyuk, Shindong and Donghae would no doubt be getting a grilling about it. Hopefully Sungmin and Kibum would be able to avoid the worst of it, and he doubted that anyone knew where Kangin and Eeteuk lived. He made a mental note to ring them all and find out what was happening.
“I’m sorry,” said Hankyung, the second they burst into the front door of the house to see Xiao Li smiling at them. “I’m really sorry for all this.”
“It’s fine, Geng,” said Xiao Li, taking his coat. “Don’t be such a - I don’t know the right word for it.”
“Wet blanket,” supplied Heechul.
“Pompous moron,” said Xiao Li in Chinese, and laughed as Hankyung, who had been glaring at Heechul, turned his annoyed expression onto her. “I like Heechul’s better, though,” she added in Korean, and Heechul smirked smugly at him.
“Siwon,” said Hankyung loudly, walking into the main room and leaving the two smiling at each other. “Siwon, your wife is picking on me.”
“Welcome to the club,” said Siwon heavily, though he grinned at him and quickly handed him a drink. “I figure that drinking that is the only way to deal with it.”
“We should get out,” decided Hankyung, nodding his head as Heechul and Xiao Li came into the room. “We should go out and get completely drunk and run away to a place together where there’s no such thing as significant others who are only there to make your life incredibly difficult.”
“So you are cheating on me,” said Heechul, raising an eyebrow and sitting down. Hankyung laughed and sat down next to him.
“Any idea when this is going to wind down?” asked Xiao Li sympathetically, giving Heechul a glass of wine.
“No,” sighed Hankyung. “Though my manager thinks it should be over in a week.”
“If nothing else comes out.” Heechul reminded him.
“Thank you for your cynicism,” said Hankyung.
***
That Sunday, Hankyung padded into the kitchen and set about making a cup of coffee without really looking at Heechul, who was sitting at the unit table and reading the newspaper; he was still half asleep, had only gotten out of bed because Heechul was already up, and he yawned as he poured his coffee out, unintentionally messing his already messy hair up with his free hand as he did so.
He had just put the coffee pot down when he realised that there was something wrong, that something didn’t seem in any way right, and it took him a second to realise that Heechul hadn’t said anything, hadn’t answered to his mumble of “Good morning.” He looked over at him.
Heechul was sitting bolt upright, staring at a page in the newspaper, shock on his face, and Hankyung looked at him for too long and burnt his hand on his cup of coffee; he set it down hurriedly on the kitchen unit next to him, and was just about to walk over to find out what was wrong when Heechul’s face crumpled, and he covered his face with his hands and his shoulders began to shake.
Hankyung almost kicked the table leg trying to get over to find out what had caused Heechul to burst into tears, the occurrence of something so rare making his heart jump to his throat. He was completely silent, just trembling, and Hankyung knew that it must be something truly terrible, something unbelievably bad, for him to have reacted like that - and then he caught sight of the newspaper article.
STAR OF HEART OF A GHOST IN NEW SCANDAL was emblazoned across the top.
“What the-” He snatched up the newspaper and looked at it in horror, scanning the pages quickly in order to get some sort of an idea as to what the hell it was talking about; apparently, this time, he had really been going out with a girl - a real girl - and it had been going on for almost as long he’d been going out with Heechul. His horrified expression turned to Heechul.
“Heechul,” he said, putting the newspaper down with shaking hands and placing his fingers on his shoulder. “Heechul, you don’t - tell me you don’t believe this.”
Heechul didn’t answer him, though his shoulders began to shake even harder, and Hankyung went around the edge of the table to bend down next to him, pulling him around until he would have been facing him if he didn’t still have his hands over his face. “Heechul,” he said desperately. “Heechul, listen to me. I haven’t - I wouldn’t do that, you have to believe me. Heechul. Please, I’m not cheating on you.”
“Stop it,” gasped Heechul, and Hankyung fell silent as he removed his hands and while there tears in his eyes, they weren’t from crying but rather through laughter; Hankyung sat down heavily on the floor. “Oh my god,” said Heechul breathlessly, still breaking off into laughter. “Are you trying to kill me? Why were you being so serious?”
“Don’t,” said Hankyung shakily. “Don’t - Heechul, don’t joke, I thought-”
“Have you read it?” asked Heechul, smirking at him. “It’s a load of rubbish; I know it’s not true.”
Hankyung swallowed, boxing down the utter panic that had overtaken him at the idea that Heechul had believed that he was cheating on him, and stood up and picked up the newspaper to read properly.
’We’d been going out for five years’ says Park Soojin, an employee at the Chunjo Bank in the south east of Seoul. ‘He asked me out in our last year of high school - he claimed that Heechul wasn’t really the one he wanted, but he couldn’t risk losing his friends - and I supported him throughout his time of working his way up his career ladder. Of course, as soon as he became famous, he dumped me. I realise now that he’s not as good of a man as I believed him to be.’
“What the hell,” said Hankyung, pulling a face of disgusted confusion. The name sounded familiar to him; he thought about it while Heechul lay his forehead on the table and laughed some more.
“Aha!” Suddenly, it struck him; a petite girl with short black hair and shrewd eyes, hovering over him and saying his name in a revered fashion. “I know her!”
“So you are cheating on me,” said Heechul with a frown, and Hankyung’s blood ran cold until he realised that he was joking.
“Don’t-” he started, and then gave up. “You know her too,” he said, and folded the paper over to show Heechul the picture that had been printed.
“Park Soojin,” read Heechul, and looked confused. “I don’t know anyone named that.”
“Well, we don’t know her,” admitted Hankyung. “We used to know her - she was the fan club leader.”
“Ah!” said Heechul loudly, and poked at the paper and almost put a hole in it. “The crazy one!”
“Yeah,” agreed Hankyung, and looked a bit more closely at the photograph of the girl. “Yeah, the crazy one.”
***
Hankyung, however, wasn’t too sure as to whether the girl really was crazy, or whether she just knew a good publicity campaign when she knew one. The two hid in their flat for the rest of the day, and by the next morning Soojin was in every tabloid in the city, her story made up of lies selling for more and more as she added more and more detail to it, and there was a multitude of journalists outside the flat, all dying to know what Hankyung had to say to his latest scandal.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t hide there for another day; Hankyung had to try and defuse the situation again before he was ruined, while Heechul was so bored that he was practically banging the door down on Monday in order to get to work. They decided to travel together, but that was mainly because they weren’t too sure whether they’d get both cars through the crowd.
Heechul paused as they stepped out of the lift and saw just how many people had gathered outside the glass front of the apartment block - Hankyung took a step forward, stopped, and turned to look at him. “Look,” said Heechul with a grin, sweeping his arm around in a semi-circle to indicate the people outside. “You’re famous!”
“Shut up,” said Hankyung, rolling his eyes at him, and he took his hand and walked out of the doors holding on tight, because he didn’t have any idea as to what was going to happen.
What happened was a barrage of questioning, so many so fast that he couldn’t quite work out what anyone was saying; he couldn’t pick out one to answer, and he wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to answer them anyway. “Um,” he said, and glanced at Heechul, who swallowed and smiled at him, and squeezed his hand a little harder. “Um, no comment.”
“Hankyung,” called one man as they tried to push their way through. “Is it true that you cheated on Heechul?”
“Are the rumours that you and Heechul are on the verge of breaking up true?” called another as they neared the car.
Heechul span around, hair flying, to glare at the two who had been audible over the din of everyone else. “No,” he said fiercely. “No to both of the questions.”
The press looked at him with some shock, drawing back slightly at the angry expression on his face. Hankyung could have kissed him, but instead he just opened his car door and got in, knowing that Heechul would join him the moment he became bored of glowering.
Heechul had been right to be cynical, and when they arrived at Hankyung’s company half an hour later, his manager was waiting for him just inside the door, and immediately pulled the two into his office. “The fact that Heechul is here tells it all,” he said, holding a hand up to stop him when Hankyung tried to say something. “I can take it that none of it is true?”
“None of it,” said Hankyung firmly, and then wavered. “Well. Some of it. We did know her in high school, but I never went out with her.”
“This is ridiculous,” said his manager, sitting down and burying his head in his hands. “Why the hell is she going around saying any of this? I have more important things to be doing than arranging press conferences because some crazy woman is being crazy.”
Hankyung’s phone rang then, and after glancing at his manager, who didn’t move, he slipped out of the room to take the call, fingers brushing over Heechul’s shoulder as he went. “Hello?” he said, wandering down the hallway to pull at the blinds to look at the press down below, and then slipping into an empty office to gain some privacy.
“Kibum says to tell you that he still knows how to box,” said Donghae’s voice, serious and more than a little threatening. “And I want you to remember that while I haven’t have training, I can still totally take you on in a fist fight.”
“Oh,” said Hankyung. “It’s not true; you don’t have to do that.”
“Oh good,” said Donghae brightly, and really, Hankyung wished he lived in Donghae’s world, where everything really was that simple. “We didn’t think it was true, but just in case - you can never be too careful.”
“Yeah,” said Hankyung.
“But you know, we would have still done it,” said Donghae, and his voice was back to being threatening. “If you had been cheating on Heechul. We would have fucked you up so much your mother wouldn’t recognise you.”
“For the love of god, Donghae!” Hankyung glanced out at the press again. “I’m getting this talk now? This is the sort of thing you say early on in the relationship, not seven years down the line!”
“We forgot to do it because you seem like such a nice guy.” Donghae laughed, and Hankyung groaned. “We knew that it wasn’t true. But we just wanted to make sure.”
“I know,” said Hankyung. “I hope the others don’t think that it’s true.”
“If it’s any comfort, Sungmin just laughed at us when we asked if he wanted to pass a message on,” said Donghae. “He said that the chance of you cheating on Heechul was as much as the chance of Kyuhyun cheating on him, and that was practically nothing because both he and Heechul are too alluring for their men to think about looking at anyone else.”
On second thoughts, Hankyung wanted to live in Sungmin’s world - it seemed so confident.
Hankyung ended the call with a long suffering sigh, and went back to his manager’s office, where the man was still sitting with his face in his hands, but Heechul was nowhere to be seen. He was informed that he had gone to find a toilet, but Heechul had never been in this part of the building before, so Hankyung went after him before he got lost. A woman at the end of the hallway told him that Heechul had headed downstairs, and when Hankyung got to the ground floor, he could see Heechul walking through the glass doors at the front, straight into the press.
“Heechul!” yelled Hankyung, and sprinted after him, coming to an abrupt stop when he was suddenly outside the doors, and Heechul just stood there in front of all the cameras going off in their faces and looked at him with a coolly raised eyebrow.
“Oh,” said Hankyung, and smiled sheepishly at him.
“I have something to say,” said Heechul, turning that cool look onto the people standing in front of him. They were not used to the expression, and a couple of the closer reporters looked a little apprehensive. “The first thing is, wow, slow news day? The second is that newspapers need to start checking their sources, because then they’ll see that what they printed was not only untrue, but also a little insane, and upsetting for many people.”
“So Hankyung-shi denies the claims made by Park-shi?” called one man. Hankyung opened his mouth to say something, but Heechul answered before he could.
“Of course he does,” he said dismissively. “We knew the girl in high school, yes. We weren’t friends; in fact, we hated each other. I don’t want to sink to her level, but this is the simple truth: she was obsessed with Hankyung, and with the others too. She tried many times to break us up, and this, apparently, is simply another in a long line of attempts.”
“Heechul,” said Hankyung quietly. “Come on, you don’t have to-”
“She claims to have spent Hankyung’s twentieth birthday with him - in fact, we threw a party at the flat he owned then, and he spent the day surrounded by friends. There are, at least, fourteen people who can clarify this. Other things, they can be disproved just as easily. None of it’s true.”
“Does Hankyung-ah have anything to say?” asked another voice.
“I’m not,” said Hankyung, falling over his words a little. “Seriously, I’m not - I wouldn’t-”
“Hankyung wouldn’t,” said Heechul, looking so confident and assured (and also a little scary) that Hankyung was shocked to find that his fingers were shaking when he took his hand.
“What about Park-shi’s claims of promiscuity in Heechul-shi’s youth?” asked the same reporter. His voice seemed a little gleeful at the scandal.
Heechul went tense, and his face lost its self-possessed look for a moment. “Still?” he asked. “Does that girl never find any new material?”
“That claim is not true,” said Hankyung coldly, so coldly that Heechul glanced at him with some shock. “Come on,” he said, and he tugged Heechul back into the building, refusing to allow any protest. His manager was just hurrying down the stairs towards them.
“Hankyung!” he yelled. “What the hell do you think you were doing, you’ve probably ruined any chance we had of having a serious press conference about this!”
Hankyung shrugged. “You try stopping Heechul when he puts his mind to it,” he said.
“They totally messed my hair up,” complained Heechul, preening in the mirror near reception.
***
It merely took a week for the whole situation to die down, after the press conference that his manager did hold. It turned out that the impromptu report given by Heechul did much to support Hankyung’s case, and before long Park Soojin had faded into the background, another girl to claim to have slept with someone famous only for it to backfire on her. It gave Yehsung quite a laugh when he came back from Japan to hear about it - Ryeowook, luckily, didn’t find it quite so hilarious, and so offered some form of sympathy. Kyuhyun, meanwhile, was forced to sign a ‘no-cheating’ policy by Sungmin, and he did so with the long suffering air of someone who knew through experience that if he didn’t do so, then he wouldn’t get any. Hankyung was reminded once again of how relatively lucky he was by dating Heechul.
“And anyway,” said Siwon, as Xiao Li sat in Heechul’s lap and laughed with him about something (Hankyung and Siwon didn’t even bat an eyelid at this sort of behaviour any more; neither tried to work out how their significant other’s mind worked). “You got a new contract for a film on the back of all this publicity.”
“I’d rather have gotten it based on my acting,” said Hankyung, scrunching his nose up and taking a sip of the strong alcohol that he had made Siwon dig up from somewhere. “Besides, don’t let Heechul hear you talk about that. He can’t stop laughing about it.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a romance film,” explained Hankyung. “If I’m going to act, he says, then I should at least do worthwhile things.”
“Don’t listen to Rella,” said Siwon, with a casual air that came from knowing exactly when not to listen to Heechul. “You’ll be Jaymin’s hero for some times. Anyway, romance films and dramas are very worthwhile.”
“Don’t tell Hannie to not listen to me,” called Heechul. “If he doesn’t listen to me, he’ll never get anything done.”
“And you only say they’re worthwhile because you’re the master of them,” said Xiao Li. Heechul cackled. Siwon made a noise of annoyance and Xiao Li just grinned at him. “Don’t worry,” she trilled. “You make a very good prince character.”
“Why did I marry you again?” asked Siwon.
“Because I’m gorgeous,” said Xiao Li, dipping her voice in an impression of Heechul, and then immediately pulling said man back into conversation before Siwon could retort.
***
Hankyung was brushing his teeth when Heechul came back into the bedroom with the newspaper and threw himself on his front to read it. Hankyung glanced at him through the open door, tightened his towel around his waist because Heechul had an annoying habit of quickly darting through and stealing it, and then continued, roused only when Heechul let out a bark of laughter.
“Oh, this is brilliant!” he gasped, and dropped the newspaper and rolled onto his back, howling. “That is just - that’s fantastic!”
“Huh?” Hankyung put his head around the door to look at him, a little dumbfounded.
“Apparently,” said Heechul, “you are now cheating on me with Siwon.” He sat up and noticed that Hankyung was practically naked; his eyes darkened a little. Hankyung, on the other hand, was staring in shock. The toothbrush fell from his mouth.
“What?” he asked, rushed back into the bathroom, quickly spat and rinsed his mouth out, and came back into the bedroom, Heechul watching him carefully the whole way.
“Yeah,” he said, with a smirk. “They’ve even got a photograph of you two hugging from when we were at the house two days ago.”
“Oh god,” said Hankyung, and sat down heavily on the bed. Heechul draped his arms over his shoulders and kissed his neck. “God hates me.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” murmured Heechul, fingers deftly undoing the knot at his waist. “But Hannie; my best friend, how could you do that to me?”
“Oh god,” repeated Hankyung. “My life is so hard.”
Heechul laughed dirtily.
“Not like that,” groaned Hankyung. “Oh, I blame you for all of this.”
“That’s nice,” said Heechul, pulling him down on the bed. “Is that really the way that you treat the man who you claimed to love when really you were cheating on him with his best friend?”
“I’m never going to be able to look Siwon in the face again,” said Hankyung.
“Really, I’m heartbroken here,” said Heechul, licking his collarbone. “I mean, keeping it secret all this time. How long, Hannie? How long?”
“I can’t believe you,” said Hankyung, fingers sliding under Heechul’s tank top. “Why, why are you like this? And stop calling me that.”
“Fuck,” said Heechul, rubbing their hips together. “You are so hot when you’re flustered.”
If it had been anyone else, Hankyung honestly would have laughed at the idea that the entire thing had been orchestrated simply because Heechul found him hot when he got embarrassed and flustered and kind of wanted to have sex. However, this was Heechul - the idea was more than a little plausible. Hankyung was scared of Heechul sometimes.